Best Sounding CD / SACD player under 15K

Are there CD Players that retail for $15,000 ?? Good Lord. Even the gurus at Stereophile could not find anything negative to say about the Marantz SA8001, and it sold for $900. They also tested the Marantz CD 5004 and praised it, $349, of course with the obligatory caveats, i.e. the mid range, or the bass, or the treble, was not as good as their $270,000 dollar 'reference' player. Save your money, get the cheapest SACD capable player. They all fail sooner or later. No one talks about that.

The Mark Levinson 512 has some fans, as well as the Burmester 001 if you can find one used...

With cd reproduction technology continuing to improve, why not buy an oppo bd-95 or sony 5400es both of which have reviewed well on audiogon and in the rags. They are multi format players so they do not fit your specification, but it is not clear why you have this requirement. You can add an external DAC to further improve the sound, but i have not bothered as i did not find them cost-perfpormance competitive over top notch players.

One trait i found in the better sounding players is upsampling vs a resistor ladder rack. I am not a technical expert on this; robert harley's guide to high end audio provides a good technical explanation.

If you would consider a Red Book only CDP, I would suggest you look into the Naim CD555 (used), which does HDCD, etc. They are available here at times under $15k. I purchased mine here for $11k. Rave reviews available on www.

Ditto on the Naim 555. Absolutely superb Redbook and Naim has an excellent rep for customer service. There is one up now for $10K. (No relation to the seller, of course). The only thing is - it is a top-loader and has a large separate power supply, which may be an issue in certain installations. But from a sonic standpoint, a no-brainer. Another choice might be a Linn CD-12. A very compelling redbook player that just unravels layer upon layer of music. I would check with Linn that they have the ability to service them. They generally go for about $8K used. Also, they are a compact front-loader, which works well if space is an issue.